All this from a Prime Minister who trained to be a priest.

It is interesting the rhetoric about the "entitlement", but I doubt if Tony or Joe see their own sense of entitlement in the mirror.

After all they will entitled to a tax payer funded, tax free political welfare for life, that is indexed to politicians pay rises.

*After all they will entitled to a tax payer funded, tax free political welfare for life, that is indexed to politicians pay rises.*

As well as that they will no doubt be offered a number of well paid directorships in companies that have benefited from all the tax handouts and rorts given them during the term of the jackboot government.

If only politicians everywhere, had to be the very first to suffer the adverse results or consequences of their often asinine decisions, we would have the very best health care, the best education system, the best most rapid transport system, the most affordable housing, the lowest taxes and the best average or minimum wage etc/etc/etc!
There was another choice, besides austerity for the most vulnerable, and that was simply build a bigger economic cake and then distribute larger slices of it, for everyone!
Which then would force feed the domestic economy, forcing even more inflation free economic growth.
If those who wish to lead can't lead us there, then they need to just hand the baton to other's who can; or just generate some original ideas, not accompanied by the smell of burning, emanating from previously unused cerebral circuits!
We need people who earn their relatively large salaries, by doing a little more than nodding off in the back benches!
For heaven sake, parliament only ever sits for a fortnight at a time!
Wake up! Sleep in your own time, not ours!
If china can produce 8% annual inflation free growth, then surely a free market democracy can best that?
Even if that then requires us to remove all/legislate against the parasitic practices, middlemen broker (robber) barons/armchair bound, bloated advisers, who only ever add their profit margins/obscene unearned fees, and often into perpetuity, rather than at the actual service point!
Rhrosty.

Mr Abbott has waged a war on the middle to lower income earners, He has gone back to the basics and the foundation of Liberal beliefs, by doing so the vague differences between the two major parties that has occurred over many years are now quite distinct ! So yes he is at war, a war he will surely loose, The numbers of swinging voters will decline because of this as the choices become much more distinct and clear ! The numbers ultimately favor Labors political values as there heartland is with the majority of voters in Australia who are of low to middle incomes ! The Liberal party has only one real option left to survive its next election without total devastation and that is to rid themselves of Abbott Hockey and Pyne so they can change their direction and gain some faith back from the bulk of the Australian voters, left as they are they are doomed to opposition for many a decade !The people will not soon forget this fiasco !
!

Marko remember the sage words of Margaret Thatcher" Socialism works until you run out of other peoples's money" lol.

'[Abbott's] attack on Australia was not foreshadowed whilst in opposition.'

Are you kidding? Of course it was foreshadowed. We had plenty of evidence of what ideological path the Coalition was on in the recent track records of the Newman and O'Farrell governments.

We've also had plenty of evidence of how the Murdoch media, the free-market IPA (and its cosy cabal of think-tanks) and the Coalition are all joined at the hip. If we didn't, then surely the overblown and irrational IPA-led victimisation in the Murdoch press of the Gillard-Rudd leadership - which pilloried any attempt it made to redistribute Australia's sovereign wealth away from the rich - must have left some elephant-sized clues.

We also had plenty of evidence of the Coalition's ideological links to, and frequent contacts with, the Cameron government's 'big society', austerity-rules policies.

And the biggest foreshadowing of all was the former Howard government and its Work Choices legislation. Only a political party that wants to create an underclass of desperate people willing to work in inhumane conditions for next to nothing would have come up with such a brutal 'worker's choice' system.

Killarney,
You don't strike me as someone who has any idea what work is.

Marko

'the fine words of Marshall in the British context, "entail the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security; to the right to share in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the society."'

what have the words of an Englishman have to do with understanding or defining our our egalitarianism?

Like you they are foreigners trying to redefine our values and our heritage.

A fair go also applies to those who need the compassion of the majority of us. That is a part of our egalitarianism. A part you and all the other foreigners and Johnny come latelys don't or won't acknowledge.

Most of us who understand our egalitarianism see it being abused by con artists and bludgers. We see our elected government reflecting our concerns and putting a stop to the rorts of asylum seekers, many able people with concocted disabilities, work dodgers, well off receiving welfare handouts, bloated public services and wastreful stupidities like the climate change industries and the nbn.

All you are doing is saying that isn't part of you egalitarianism.

I utterly reject your idea of what constitutes our egalitarianism. Your definition is truncated and isn't the same as our traditional one.

Our writers and poets of the late 18th and early 19th centuries defined us and highlighted our egalitarianism. In those times there was no social welfare. They expected people to pull their weight. We still do.

in those times there was a benevolence in our society. Social welfare and the creeping socialism destroyed that generosity. Slowly until today any possibility of reviving that benevolence has been destroyed by the over generosity and wastefulness of the stupid socialists and assorted dogooders with our taxes.

I'm with you, Julian, hear, hear!

For you, Marko, from one Australian egalitarian ideologue, "Fair suck of the sav." (Or, pull the other one, mate.)

Marko's portrayal conjures images of an Oz of clean, crisp blonde-haired blue-eyed youth blissfully savouring sweet ripe fruit and sweet breads which appear magically out of nowhere, who swim languidly in transparent blue pools and retire to spotless air-conditioned quarters illuminated in a soft warming glow, and where calming tones of flute and lyre lull them gently to deep untroubled sleep in king-sized feather-downed beds laid out lovingly by invisible hands for their absolute care and contentment.

Not a dirty hand, or a single shoveler to be seen anywhere.
Such utopia, such bliss, such a crock.

Those who can, do; those who can't don't; but those who refuse can't expect a red carpet ride.

Those who have the means should, and often do, whatever they can to help those less fortunate. This applies to country as well as to individuals, but the 'quality of mercy' is indeed strained when too many want, nay demand, too much for nothing.

Utopia we don't have, and those who insist on living in a fool's paradise can only blame themselves when the teat runs dry.

Only in some hypothetical tribe hidden away deep in the Amazon may there exist, or have existed, a true 'egalitarian' society - and even that is questionable (as the successful hunter usually has the pick of the spoils).

Whether the budget situation is as bleak as portrayed or not, is moot. The reality is that there are very real difficulties ahead, with downturns in mining and industry, and a relative non-competitiveness in our labour market.
We are going to have to get smarter, or our economy is headed for a rude awakening.
Something has to change, and I give credit to Abbott and Hockey for proposing to do what is needed to avoid economic suicide.
Too many handouts, and having too many hangers-on, is not the way to a rosy future.

Egalitarianism for those who truly deserve it, no more, no less.

I know that you would like everybody in your former homeland to come to Australia, Marko, and turn it into what you fled from, but as an Australian, I don't want that. In the same way that you want to live among your own people, and feel a bit threatened living among mine, I want to live among my own people, not yours. And it is my country.

If hundreds of thousands of Anglo Saxons were pouring into your former homeland every year, your people would be just as pisssed about it as my people are about your people invading our country. Especially if they were turning up in boats and asking directions to the nearest dole office.

We do believe in a fair go for everybody, Marko. But that does not mean that we want to become a minority in our own country. It is bad enough that our stupid governments, both Labor and Liberal, are determined to completely change the demographics of their own country, but at least our immigration laws prevent just anybody turning up. We will not tolerate people lobbing on our shores with their hands out for our ever shrinking welfare funds.

People are starting to figure out that "refugees" means "no pension for me until I am 85."

People are starting to figure out that "refugees" means "no pension for me until I am 85."
Lego,
That's exactly how things are going in Europe now. The son no longer gets the same benefits as his father although the nephew took over the father's job. It all is due to funding having been heavily reduced from paying for refugee immigration. When the European WW2 refugees came to Australia they worked & worked hard & well to build australian infrastructure. Today's so-called refugees from totally different cultures under drastically different agenda with mentalities of gimme, gimme & no work ethics are depleting our coffers & that is the fundamental difference.
I'm ready to help anyone but I refuse to do things for someone who has no inclination to help themselves. I have lived the bulk of my working life in a gimme, gimme society & can assure any doubters out there that these people are on collision course with their own destruction due to lazyness & costing the decent citizens a fortune for nothing in return for anyone.

I am surprised at how people have reacted to Abbott's duplicitous behaviour he was after all schooled by the Jesuits, as was Corman and I suspect Hockey, who mastered the art of equivocation and mental reservation.

Durance,
if you were to ask a thinking person Abbott's behaviour would not be described duplicitous.
This broken promises histeria is nothing but leftie panic waffle because they can see that Abbott is slowing down the bandwagon which is actually good for the nation & not bad as the lefties are trying to tell us. If what Abbott does reigns in the lefties than it is a good thing not a bad thing. If this Government is changing direction to what they promised then so be it, anything to rectify the ALP mess. After all, aren't all these changed promises part of the policies which this Goverment will take to the next election not now ? I think the lefties know that & that's why they panic because they're fully aware that this Government will deliver enough for people to vote them in again. This double dissolution nonsense is merely a push by the morons to exploit the present unpopularity which will soon be dispelled by evidence of better management.

"if you were to ask a thinking person Abbott's behaviour would not be described duplicitous"

That person would be Blind Freddy.

Geez Indy, and you call other people morons?

Well, Luc, it is in all our interests for Australia's current economic advantage (AAA) and stability to be maintained, and built upon.

We can not accomplish that by spendthrifting away that current advantage.
And, a smaller future 'pie' can only mean reduced servings for all, exacerbated further by the inevitable additional mouths needing a slice.

With only the exception (in my view) of proposed changes to Parental Leave, a brave formula has been put forward to re-invigorate our economy to withstand the downturn in mining revenues and the loss of automotive manufacturing and associated support industries, amongst others - including ever-more services going 'offshore'.

'User pays' is not something alien to any modern economy, ours included, and part of the proposed 'paying' formula aims to get everyone contributing a fair share, within their reasonable capabilities.

Ours is the world's best public health system, and ours is top-ten in public education and probably also in aged-care and social welfare.
What then are the reasonable priorities, given that almost nothing comes at no cost, and substantial improvements in infrastructure are also required to meet the challenges of taking Oz' manufacturing, industry and public amenity to 21st century best-practice?

We can find a way to meet our economic and social challenges, but this will require us to keep our eyes and our minds open to the realities of those challenges, and not our clinging blindly to any untenable ideology or unrealistic expectations.

The plan may not be perfect, but it is within our capacity to work out the 'wrinkles' - in the genuine spirit of realistic compromise.
Much to achieve, so little time.